I made a bitchin' dinner tonight! Here it is:

Rabrrrrrr

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Thu Dec-11-03 11:02 PM
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I made a bitchin' dinner tonight! Here it is:

and dammit, I forgot to take pictures. I really wanted a picture of the scallop and shrimp dish. Alas, it didn't happen.

We started off with a glass of Balvenie Double Barrel.

Then I sauteed some sea scallops and shrimp in butter and garlic. The scallops and shrimp then went on small serving plates into which had been ladled a small amount of heated, creamed, blended leek and potato soup (someone who really knows cooking will know the term for doing that, but I don't - maybe it's a "base"?). I placed on each plate two scallops on a the edges of a diameter line; then placed three shrimp in a line on the perpendicular diameter, and put one more shrimp on top of the shrimp in the center of the plate. I had four scallops left over, so they somwhat unartfully onto the pates. Then, in the pan in which I did the shrimp and scallops, I sauteed some matchsticked yellow and green zucchini, added a splotch of heavy cream, then spooned that mixture over the central shrimps, and put some in each of the plate quarters between the shrimp and the scallops. That was Course The First.

With that course, we served the merlot that my friend brought. Not the most excellent choice, but that's what we had, and since I was serving steak later, we went with the red so as not to open two bottles since they had to leave early anyway.

For the main course, I blanched some string beans (amazingly tasty this time of year!), and also some really small potatoes (of many different types, including some purple ones) that I'd never had before but saw them at the Union Square Green Market. I boiled the really small potatoes, and when done, mixed them with a butter and rosemary coating. Those potatoes, I want you to know, were the tastiest, most incredible potatoes I've ever had. I hope I can find some of them again - really, they had a huge, sweet, buttery taste (even without the rosemary butter on them). Magnificent!! They were an assortment of five or six varities that the vendor was selling separately, but he was also offering this mixture.

I sauteed a ribeye steak and a shell steak, both of which had marinated for a couple hours in olive oil, salt, and pepper. I cooked them medium rare, them deglazed the pan with a crimini mushroom broth I'd made last week. I added into the deglazing mix some minced shallots and garlic, let it cook for a few minutes, then added a bunch of crimini mushrooms I'd sauteed in butter, some more mushroom broth, and then some heavy cream. I let that cook and reduce for about 4-5 minutes. Also added some fresh crushed pepper. I plated the steak, added the green beans and potatoes, then poured the sauce over the steak.

I served the steak with the merlot, and also at my friend's suggestion a glass of 10 year old Laphroig. Holy cow!! Not only incredible food, if I may say so myself, but that peety scotch goes AMAZINGLY well with steak, at least steak that's been cooked in an earthy mushroom sauce. HOLY COW is all I can say about that combo.

I was then gonna serve some cheese (Old Amsterdam, Gorgonzola, and Dutch Edam) and some 30-year old tawny port, but alas, my friends had to go, so I shall save the cheese for this weekend when I go to their house.

I cannot get over how PHENOMENAL those little potatoes were. They weren't much bigger than the tip of my pinky, but so much flavor - and so much GOOD flavor. I'm hooked!!

The leek and potato soup I'd made before, I had made some other small potatoes (though not that teeny) from the same vendor, and they were also amazing. Even raw, those potatoes rocked.

Great dinner, great conversation, great friends. And I learned that Laphroig is an excellent drink with steak. Does it get any better than that? I don't think so, and for an evening, all thought of the loss of the country, the pain of the war that isn't a war, and all the evil of the world disappeared for a few hours, adn it was just us and the food and the drink, just like Jesus would want.